"There were five cinemas in Bootle, the Imperial, the Palace, the Strand, the Coliseum and the Gainsbury, and normally they would change a film, but they didn't do that with The
Jolson Story, they played it right through the week.
And our response was to use materials we could lay up to express their textures instead of actual white, which would have been very stark, particularly with the north-west orientation," says
Jolson.
The Dirge Singer (1922) This radio special starring Al
Jolson was based on the singer's life.
QCAN you give me some information on the films The
Jolson Story and
Jolson Sings Again?
Host Mervyn Francis performs Al
Jolson hits, with the Martyn St James band.
The picture had been taken in 1937 when Braun was 25, and she had captioned the image "Me as Al
Jolson".
Heyward had first promised the musical rights of "Porgy" to Gershwin, but gave them to Jerome Kern, and suggested strongly for Al
Jolson as Porgy.
And Brian, whose roles have been as diverse as Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Al
Jolson in the musical
Jolson, admits to some first-night nerves when taking to the stage in a skirt.
The guy in blackface has to be Al
Jolson, who starred in the movie as a Jewish boy whose father, a cantor, wanted him to give up his career on the popular stage and succeed him.
Not so much a musical, more a theatrical lecture-demonstration, this cost-conscious show is built around the remarkable ability of actor-singer Allan Stewart to knock out a string of early-20th century pop songs in the style of Al
Jolson.